My Doll
by ItsRagtime
Summary: A story about love.
1. From Anything Alive

The boy looked twenty at most, but more likely somewhere around sixteen – a younger one, perhaps one of the youngest scouts they had ever captured. Though it was hard to tell much about him through the iron spikes that tore through his body like a skewer, and the blood covering his face - the open, bleeding eyes and the towering mouth frozen in one, last horrified expression. His skin had already gone pale as she carefully brushed the snow from his eyelids, and empathy flooded through the girl that stood before the scene, for a moment, although she didn't know what such a weakness felt like. She was always such a healthy girl.

It all looked and smelled very rusty, and she wanted to be rid of it fast. But she knew she couldn't leave a specimen there, out in the open, before Medic arrived. Underneath her dark red hood, she shivered and hugged her shoulders tightly, looking up at the sky and letting icy flakes touch her skin. From far off echoed the sounds of war, gunshots and cries ringing through the emptiness, making her feel even colder. She comforted herself with the thought that she would be inside soon, away from all of this, perhaps with something hot in her stomach once all the aching numbness had faded away, everything back to normal. Listening to Engie's mellow guitar, steaming mugs of ginger tea, sleep for the first time in so many hours she had lost count.

Maybe, she hoped, even a chance to get a quiet moment with Medic when he wasn't working. Though there was little plausibility of this happening. Seldom recently did the team ever catch more than a glimpse of him, in the short breaks he took to leave his laboratory and find supplies. She was lucky, of course. She saw him the most out of all of them. He needed her. Who else built these elaborate traps quite like she did – and from where else would he gather such a fresh, bountiful supply of corpses, on which to perform his research, on their side of the battlefield? And what other member of the team would be so hopelessly willing to offer their services? After all, from the outset it seemed as though she and Medic had always had an inexplicable fondness for each other. Since joining the team, she, the Huntress, simply admired him. His work, his stature. Even his thick, German accent. Everything about Medic struck her as iconic.

Everything about him she wanted to see again so badly, even if it meant soon shouldering this mass of rotting flesh on their backs to the laboratory. She looked at him now – the boy's skin was paper-white, a stark contrast to the bloodstains littering the snow. Medic would be disappointed – the way the boy had gotten ensnared made this one of her messiest captures yet. His body was so severed in all the wrong places, he could hardly be called human anymore by standard definition. _"Again vith za messes, Fraulein. How many times have I told you, I vant a clean-cut specimen!"_ Medic would scold her. _"I have said it many times, and I vill say it again: you are too young for zis job, Fraulein." _He'd say it out of some sort of affection, and yet this dissatisfaction would eat at her every time, much more than he would realize. She sighed, her breath a puff of white vapor that rose up in the cold air and faded away.

There was his voice, a hoarse calling in the distance. No need for subtlety here – they were far off from anything dangerous, or, as she put it, far off from anything that vaguely resembled a form of life. Her arms still bound tightly for warmth across her chest, she turned towards the sound and saw a shadowed figure coming forward from the distance. There he stood, a tall 6'2 against the silhouettes of the old, worn fortresses, his sleek, square jawline set grim. Her face flushed and she shyly turned back towards her prized catch, realizing too late that she should have undone the boy from the iron stakes before Medic arrived. Huntress began to work at them quickly, until she soon heard the telltale crunch of his approaching footsteps traveling in the snow.

"Vat have you caught for me today?" he said, causing her to start. She turned around to see his grinning face, as he brushed past her, giving her shoulder a squeeze and peering over the still half-trapped specimen. "Anozer scout?" Medic sighed and adjusted his spectacles. She nodded, averting her eyes. Was he angry? But no, he laughed his guttural laugh and said to himself, "You sink zey vould learn." Together they began to work their kill off the large iron bear trap and carry it back to the RED team base, leaving a scarlet trail of the boy's blood dripping in their wake.


	2. The Beautiful Girl

The smell of hot bouillabaisse filled the small, crowded, steaming kitchen that evening, as Pyro hunched interestedly over the single pot on the greasy stove, a wooden ladle in hand. The coal-colored pipes from the stove crawled up to the ceiling and arrayed themselves in a metal web over the room. Huntress sat at the dirty, wooden picnic table in the center of the kitchen, propped up on a tired elbow and holding a mug of tea.

In the other room, Soldier could be heard telling raucous stories of the old wars to Heavy and Demoman as they all sipped cold beer. Every dramatic pause he took in the telling would hold the audience captive, their breath strung-out and suspended in mid-air; when Soldier arrived at a punch line, he had the men in roaring hysterics. Cigarette smoke and the notes of a guitar carried through the window from outside, where Engie and Spy sat around a small fire, shivering in the cold of the winter evening, speaking in small, broken and drunken phrases and vaguely staring out into the night time sky. Sniper had retired early, Scout was on the roof top. And Medic was alone in his laboratory. Again.

Huntress stood up in a tired slump, her fingers still wrapped around the handle of the dripping mug, and made her way towards the basement. As quietly as she could, she opened the large metal door and toed down the stairs. She had never summoned the courage to visit him before during his lab work. She thought he would get angry, or fitful, and in a storm command her out, out, out, I have important vork to do zat you vould not understand, dummkopf. But over her continual fear she knew she couldn't stand him being so isolated all the time, and her heart reached out for him.

Medic's laughter echoed through the cavernous room that was his laboratory. As she reached the landing, the dingy light above his solitary examination table cast shadows onto the concrete walls. Her footsteps reverberated, cutting the Medic short mid-laugh and making him turn. He seemed to know precisely the sound to be that of Huntress's thick boots, so he faced her with an overly welcoming smile.

"Velcome, Dahlia. How nice of you to visit," Medic grinned, advancing towards her. He had called her by her first name so informally and seemed genuinely glad Huntress had arrived. She eased her tense shoulders a little and walked forward, nodding in recognition. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a mass of dark red on his metal table – the mangled Scout body was stripped naked and split down the middle, his skin pinned back and glistening organs exposed. Patches of blood covered the floor and the table, and she had begun to stare stupidly at the sight. He cleared his throat to get her attention – he had removed his glove and extended his hand for a polite handshake that she had, in her distractedness, rejected, and he still held it there expectantly. Huntress took his bare hand in her free one and gave it a rushed and nervous shake, not daring to meet his eyes. He turned with a small chuckle to put his surgical gloves on the counter.

"Please," he said over his shoulder, "sit down, Fraulein. Tell Medic vat he can do for you." She took a seat on a metal stool near the wall, by a small side table covered in magazines. She set her tea down on top of them.

It took Huntress a moment to gain her confidence. "You're always by yourself," she mumbled, shyly averting her eyes to the corner.

"Hmm?"

"_You're always alone in your lab,_" Huntress repeated with more volume, kicking her feet anxiously with her hands on her lap. Medic laughed again, turning from the counter and sauntering towards her.

"Is zat all? You vorry far too much, Fraulein. You must understand that I am a man of medical science, and that certain research must be done." He sounded exasperated, worn but well used to it. "I have no time to waste, unlike the rest of those dummkopfs." Medic nudged his way behind her and began to massage her shoulders, which took her a bit by surprise. "Must have vorked hard today," he said, brightening up immediately, "you're so tense." She let him work his old, experienced hands through her muscles in an awkward silence. "I'd hate to see such strain in such a strong girl," he said quietly, almost to himself.

Dahlia looked at the counter on the opposite wall, lined with countless cabinets and jars of substances she'd never know the names of, bags of syringes next to bottles of all colors locked in a glass and wooden case, labeled in eccentric abbreviations by his own elegant hand - some marked with "vccn," (vaccine, she assumed,) others, stranger names, like Denv and HCN. indecipherable, yet meticulously organized and ready for procedure. She wondered what he did with them, all those needles and bottles. Probably something valuable, irreplaceable. The dirty but respectable job of making sure nobody got sick in the miserable weather of Coldfront and that things stayed that way; she flushed a little with pride at the thought. How dedicated Medic was, how hard-working.

When her shoulders were loose and comfortable, she felt his fingers moving down her back, in slow, circular movements that pushed and pulled her muscles like a piece of hard clay beginning to soften. The place stank of blood and chemicals emanating from the Scout's body, but she was able to breathe in and let out a deep sigh that trembled with her racing heart rate. "I wish you weren't alone so much," she said. "I want to help you work."

His hands continued to work in skillful motion. "Nonsense, Dahlia. You help me far enough already." The tone with which he spoke had lost its light-hearted feel. "Besides, this vork is too much for you. Long hours, meticulous vorking of the hands, you see. You haven't been here very long, but you do no not vant to see how things are run ven ze whole team falls ill and I'm ze only vun around to save zem! My line of vork is not somezing you'd vant to dabble in, Fraulein. Don't get so vorried about it."

One hand still idly in massaging, he reached the other around to finger her jawline. Too shy to protest, She felt the rough, callused surface of his hand as he moved up and down, as though studying a work of art solely by touch. Then abruptly he stopped, gave her shoulders a firm, friendly squeeze, and began to walk away. "come now," he said, motioning for her to follow, "you should sleep now. A growing girl like you has no business out and about at zis hour." Medic chuckled. She stood slowly and wandered warily after him. The two walked upstairs and to her plain bedroom, a single cot resting against the slate-gray wall. He sat her down on the bed and stroked her short, dark pixie cut as best he could, hushing her and telling her to sleep until she finally closed her eyes and drifted off. When she slept, Medic observed with a boyish sort of glee, she was such a lovely, glowing girl.


	3. Sudden Rush

"Nah, Mate, This 'ere's just a cold. I'll be over it in a few days." Sitting in the frozen rafters, the sniper used a free hand to slurp down some coffee from his "#1 Sniper" mug and adjusted his sunglasses. "You can count on it." Things were normal in Sniper's nest, aside from a few sniffles and the occasional wipe of his nose on the sleeve, but Huntress had decided to check up on him and keep his cup filled with something hot to drink after he had woken up late with a face flushed in all the wrong places and refused to take up Pyro's offerings of boxes of tissues. "That boy's a stubborn mule," Engineer had said to her after Sniper went up to his post. "See to it he don't hurt himself too much."

With Medic busy on the battlefield assisting the rest of the team, Huntress had taken Engie's suggestion and was spending the day in the nest. Sniper didn't seem entirely glad of the company, but he wasn't displeased with it either. Having someone else up there kept spies away. The moment she set foot next to him, he had handed her a kukri, faced her towards the exit, and told her to swing at anything that moves. Of course, when danger pulled a no-show, she got bored easily and would peek over her shoulder to enquire on how Sniper was holding up, or start some sort of small talk, or offer to fetch two more mugs of hot coffee for the two of them. Things were friendly, though she would have to look away and pretend not to notice whenever Sniper started up the Jarate works.

But on the first day, things were normal, quiet, comfortable - Refreshing, even, just to spend the mission with another live human being. Among the dead, she believed, one was in worse company. If there was one thing Huntress had gleaned from her days on the job, it was that few Scouts could start a lively conversation with a metal stake in their heart, and Heavies tended to clam up when their bodies were minced to pieces by the trap they just stepped on. Sometimes she talked to them out of some sort of pity or remorse, or perhaps just desperation. Hunting, she regarded, was truly lonely work.

Disengaging herself from her sorrowful reverie, she looked at Sniper, the sharp edge of his profile facing the world outside the alcove, outlined in golden thread by the late afternoon sun.

"Um… Mr. Sniper?"

"You see a spy, mate?"

"Well, no, but… um…" She looked down awkwardly. Sniper Intimidated her, as did most of the team – the only conversations she could pull off were with Medic, and even then only sparingly. Though they acted polite (polite _and efficient_, Sniper had once corrected her), Huntress didn't know what they actually felt about her, and she wasn't sure she wanted to.

Often Heavy would playfully tease her for how small she was, or how she had such wide, worried jade eyes and ever-raised eyebrows, poised but always alert-looking, as though the slightest sound might startle her. He laughed at the way her skin was as pale as spilt fresh cream, at her posture, always erect but so focused inward. "Leetle girl is like mouse," he would say, and the other men would laugh too, Soldier guffawing in a raucous, thundering voice, Demoman chuckling, even Pyro let escape a muffle or two. The only ones who wouldn't laugh were Medic and Spy, the latter preferring to spend any and all social hours in complete silence, observing from the darkness.

When she thought about, Huntress realized, Spy was the one who scared her most. While the behavior of the others could be chalked up to their gauche thirst for humor, and Medic's for the love of his work, Spy was a closed book sealed with lock and key, his motives forever a mystery. On the off chance she ever caught his eye, he would stare back at her mournfully, the tails of his cigarette smoke billowing around him, with a faint gleam of silent apprehension. The look sent shivers down her spine.

Medic, of course, had no patience with Heavy these times when he went off on a tangent, in his thick, Russian voice, of how many things were wrong with Dahlia. Schweinhunds, he'd call them, always interrupting the uproarious laughter. Only Medic's anger would shut them up properly, so they'd try to torment her whenever he wasn't around, which, as she well know, was more lately than ever. What was the motivation? Why the sudden rush? What was different now about his work that made it so much more urgent than what it was months ago, when Huntress had first started? Those were the days they had become intimate – often spending long days and evenings together in quiet, friendly conversation, and though she could almost never meet his eyes, she was aware of herself always in his. Medic was always watching her, protecting her, even when she felt she didn't need it. Scout couldn't so much as lay a finger on her without a latex-covered hand on his face in the same beat, shoving him to the ground and reminding him profusely that he was more than capable of sawing his damn arms off if he couldn't control them.

She wondered, for a moment, if that's what love was, what it felt like. And she found the courage to look at her team mate directly.

"Sniper. Don't um… Um… Just… Feel better, ok?"

A smile crept across his unshaven face. "Thanks, mate."


	4. Guardian Angel

It happened a few nights later, when Dahlia was walking alone, down one of the dimly lit halls near the dormitories, her mind a-wander, musing why one light was flickering and Engie hadn't fixed it yet, what was that burning smell and what would she have for breakfast tomorrow, what is that burning smell, what was Medic doing right now and did he need her there to help him, what was that burning smell, it has the distinct air of cigarettes –

Abruptly she stopped in her tracks, causing the French man behind her to stumble a bit in his effort to mimic her pace in order to mask his own footsteps. Huntress turned shyly towards Spy, meaning to ask him what he was doing, but suddenly inhaling a bout of his smoke and sputtering in a nasty coughing fit that had her doubling over.

"Pardon, Mademoiselle," he said as he strode to her side to help her right herself. Huntress grabbed his hand gratefully and looked him in the eyes, not without noticing his other arm extended to support her not by holding her back, but with the hand hovering just over it, gingerly. She apologized then for a multitude of things for which she held no blame, tripping over her words, and her gaze dropped to the floor. Why had he approached her? When had Spy ever wanted anything to do with her? Dahlia opened her mouth to speak, but found the words quickly stolen:

"I apoleegize for not approaching you directly. Old 'abitz are 'ard to break, non?" He smiled a bit at this, but it quickly turned back to his normal, serious expression. "But I deed not do so wizout reason." Huntress stammered and looked to the floor, when suddenly he grabbed her and again and held it warmly in his.

"Dahlia. You are rezpectable. I could not bear eet eef somezing happened to you, not when I could 'ave stopped eet." His stone gray eyes stared into her jasmine ones, and his eyebrows furrowed. "Dahlia. I want you to leave zees team. I want you to leave zees place. Zee sooner you do so, the better off you are."

So her suspicions had been confirmed. He did hate her, like the rest of them did. Not Medic, but the rest of them, all right. They had kept her around for her job but not her very person, and had finally decided to get rid of her. Spy was serious enough, and always seemed so aware of things – she just knew they had sent him to do the job. Tears formed in her eyes – Sniper had seemed so kind to her the other day. Was he in on this too? And what did she know – perhaps Medic felt nothing for her at all. She let the glistening drops run down her cheeks and fall to the ground. Spy's face hardened as he saw this and he gave her hand a firm squeeze. "I know zees eez… sudden. But, please. Please trust me."

She didn't know what it was. But something about his face told her she needed to. And Huntress was such a strong girl.


	5. Rainy Days, Rainy Nights

A single bed, simple but stacked high with blankets; small windows, closed with the blinds drawn; a dingy, wooden desk tucked neatly in the corner; a sidewalk of crumpled, dropped papers, all read over numerous times but so abundant that one could only search desperately for a place to put them, and in vain – covering every inch of exposed carpet.

Medic would not stop writing her.

Spy had bade her leave immediately, and in the night – he knew of somewhere to send her, to another RED team base off somewhere far south, where he had connections with a spy – they had a whole network, he had explained – and where she would be spending her time indefinitely. He had never said why the team wanted to be rid of her, only that she mustn't say goodbye or contact them or anything, as though they felt the need to wipe the slate completely. Out of sight, out of mind, Huntress mused. She supposed she'd never know just what she did wrong, only that she needed to "save herself" by getting away from them.

Likewise her new team did not seem to know the reason, nor did they seem to feel one way or another about the whole thing in general. They were down-to-earth, decent people, happy, she thought, for an extra pair of hands to lighten the work, but emotionless in all ways else. Of note, she was fond of the new RED Engie; something about him struck her as down-to-earth and approachable, someone she could run to in a time of such confusion. She harbored a fascination for his mechanical devices, and the intricate methods with which he built them, often able to watch him work for hours, while he'd ramble about the this-what and that-who of life back in Texas – not really _to_ her, but _at _her – with an air of faint nostalgia and breath that smelled distinctly of whisky. The days passed quietly as though she and they did not exist together, but rather happened to occupy the same near vicinity of space. This scout proved to be just as noisy, this Heavy just as blowhard, this Pyro just as disjointed. The new Medic was the one she seemed to pay the most attention to, if only out of the need to see where he was and where he was going just so she could avoid him. It broke her heart to see such a man of the same face and status, a man so similar to the one she adored – yet a man to whom she was a total stranger.

It was not to say that she and the old Medic were history – not long after she had settled in had she received a letter from him begging her return. How he had known her location when Spy was so desperate to keep it all a secret remained a mystery, but her judgment told her not to respond. Something about that look of Spy's seemed so… genuine that she couldn't possibly betray any of these insane things he was asking of her. There must have been a reason for her expulsion from the team – Medic was probably overreacting having lost his dear partner and supply of test subjects that were of the opposing team and weren't blown to pieces by a rocket launcher.

But once she didn't respond, the letters came in at least twice daily, the writing grown desperate, frantic, trembling – it wasn't a matter of wanting her back, it was one of _needing _her. But she couldn't go back, even if she could find a way to travel there or wanted to. Spy wouldn't explain anything, but it was obvious that something about the old RED team just didn't work with Dahlia in the picture. And so she chose to read the Medic's writings, and read them again, tracing the letters fondly with her fingertips, day-dreaming about just what she would say, how she would respond. Written on those pages were more words than she had Ever exchanged with anyone. Why was he so desperate? Was it possible Medic was not part of the collective decision to let her go, and that they hadn't told him the reason? It didn't matter now, though, it would never matter. The point is she was gone, and gone to stay.

The new base was tolerable – escaping Coldfront meant no ice on the walkways for Huntress to clumsily slip over, no thick layers of coats on coats and big, hulking snow boots to keep in the heat – winter here wasn't the problem. It was the nonstop rain.

Huntress was forced to stay inside as much as possible, always with some excuse that she had traps to design and work on, and she couldn't have them rusting, which, frankly, made her feel quite worthless. Even Pyro went out on the water-logged missions each day, opting for axe over flamethrower. But rain always seemed to deathly and cold and sickening. She would rather be back home and frozen down to her toes than forced to stand outside in the lonely shadow cast by a crying sky, empty and colorless, shivering and soaking wet. So, when she had to, she'd tuck away down in the intel on the pretext of helping Engie build his sentries and keep them there, but really just trying to dance around the spots of water-logged, flooded flooring and find a dry corner to huddle in, and perhaps set a trap for spies if she felt like being useful. If she ever found the courage, or perhaps the defiance, to write Medic back, Dahlia knew exactly what she'd say:

_Dear Medic,_

_It's wet._

Often she had resorted to staring at a blank sheet of paper when an evening was free, a pencil held suspended mid-air and ready to nose-dive as soon as the proper words formed in her head. But she knew Spy wouldn't want her writing Medic anyway, so there was really nothing worthwhile she could say that he could answer. So she merely stared and basked in an overwhelming sense of helplessness.


	6. Adrenaline Keeps the Blood Running

Looking about the room now, she decided that, though her heart ached, she liked the small, cozy retreat they had given her to settle into. "The room down the hall and to the left," the new Spy had called it, showing her the way. She breathed in the fresh, cabin-esque air contently and sat down in the rotting wooden desk.

She felt like reading Medic's latest entry aloud, though she knew the whole thing by memory: every word, every paragraph, she even knew where he put the loops in his letters. Huntress unfolded the closest piece of paper to reveal the lines of faded black ink:

Liebe Dahlia,

It is my sincerest hope that you are happy and all is well. I could go to great lengths to detail the vital importance of your proper health, but that would bore you, wouldn't it? So I will only say this: promise me you won't get hurt. Get sleep, eat well, and worry not. As you well know, I feel ineffable weltschmerz of this new world withbout you every moment you are away, and wish you home desperately. However, I understand your decisions to leave and respect them. Just know I am always here for you to correspond with and it is both my professional priority and personal obligation to ensure that you are always in the best state of physical and emotional fitness.

Rest assured that the RED team is doing substantially well. Though the absence of your skills has lead to many of our short-comings, we have been able to overlook the flesh wounds and pursue ambitions with a renewed fervor. Happenings have remained relatively normal around the base. Herr Sniper has recovered from the slight head cold, though I worry that Scout may catch something if he continues his hapless manners. Nothing serious, of course.

I encourage you to return a message, if only out of my deepening concern for how you are doing and an interest in how you are being treated at the new RED base. After all, I have no guarantee that you are even alive, and the thought troubles me terribly, though you should not feel as though you are at fault. Forgive me, Dahlia, It is only my sehnsucht.

Herzliche Grüße,

Fritz

She cast it aside and sighed sadly, looking out one of the dreary, miniscule windows and listening to the tin beat of the rain on the rooftops. She absent-mindedly traced the lines of wood on desk surface, when suddenly there was a knock at the door. Huntress nearly fell out of her chair in surprise, and ran over to open it, only to find herself face to face with Scout.

He stood there gawkily, scratching the back of his head and looking off in some distant, non-existent corner just to avoid her gaze. She saw he was slouching, with his shoulders hunched and his neck craned forward, his pants held up carelessly with a belt that had long gone slack. He looked at her and jumped, almost as though he didn't expect her to be there, even though he was the one who had knocked on her door in the first place. They locked eyes for a moment, then their heads turned and their looks scattered.

"Uh, hey," Scout stammered. He obviously had very little practice talking to girls, and it showed in his face. Huntress raised an eyebrow. "Engie told me he wanted ta see you 'bout some'n or udder. I, uh, I dunno. Some'n 'bout machines or whadever."

She looked at him.

"Oh."

An awkward silence. The only sound heard was that of Scout tapping his foot like a jackrabbit, ready to take off the moment she gave word.

"You wanna, uh… you wanna go over there an' meet him or some'n?"

"Ok."

As she followed Scout through the hallways towards the garage where Engineer worked, Huntress studied the perfectly dull wooden walls, lined with doors to all the team's dormitories. She tried to guess which room was whose by how they were decorated. Scout's was obvious – the door was practically smothered in baseball posters, all sloppily taped and re-taped where they had started peeling. Heavy's, too, was easy to pick out. The door frame cracked in places where a large, Russian man had obviously tried to squeeze through an entrance much too small for him. The door with the polished handle and the simple, neat lock, she assumed, might have belonged to Spy. The one thrown open to reveal a room that looked as though it hadn't been cleaned in months could have been Demoman's, or Soldier's. The last one on the left, along with anything flammable within a ten-foot radius, bore the telltale burnt mark of Pyro. The entrance to xir room could hardly be called a door anymore, as much as a charred piece of carbon.

Suddenly, Dahlia broke from her thoughts and nearly jumped out of her skin when she turned her head away from the walls. There, walking towards them, was the hulking Pyro xirself. Xe reeked of flames and all sorts of chemicals, and the dead horse eyes of xir gasmask bulged grotesquely in opposite directions. Pyro at home she had been comfortable with – that Pyro seemed to use household chores as a fire-loving conduit, cooking exotic dishes only Huntress had the audacity to try, washing the team's clothes solely for the opportunity to attempt manually drying them, purging through items for things the team didn't need or want so xe could make a bonfire out of them ("Mmmf mmmph mmrrgh mmrf," was xir reasoning), insisting on a lack of a heating system in the Coldfront base out of a desire to be the furnace xirself. This one looked like xe enjoyed a good fire too, only that xe would be using Dahlia to make them. The new Pyro was a lot taller as well, towering over her and Scout as xe passed them, cradling a polished Degreaser in xir arms like a brand new kitten.

She cast a worried sideways glance at Scout, but he obviously found the encounter relatively normal.

They turned left and entered a new passageway. This one had slightly darker wooden paneling and fewer doors. That which lead to the garage was on the far end. In fact, it was the very last one. It was a big hulking thing made of textured steel, with a tiny window fastened and bolted into it, towards the top, for no particular purpose other than to get a glimpse of the room one was going into. They stepped inside to find Engineer facing the wall, welding a piece of metal, sparks flying in all directions. He didn't hear them enter and was humming to himself, low and off-key.

"Ok then, uh…" Scout stood at the doorway. "I'm out." He turned on his heel and sped out the door.

A moment of silence.

"That you, kiddo?" Engie said without turning around. Dahlia nodded hastily, twiddling her thumbs, as was her habit when talking to new people. "Um, Scout said you… um, needed me," she said, stumbling over her words like Demoman wearing a blindfold. Engineer set his tools down and stood to face her. He removed his helmet and wiped the sweat from his brow.

"Good ta see ya. Yer jest the girl I need. Take a look at this." Engie strode over towards a mass with a tarp thrown over it, extending his arms as though presenting the lost city of Atlantis. "I know how you make them traps a yers, so I sorta decided to take a look at 'em. Lotta stuff wrong with the first ones, y'see. 'Riginal models got a couple design flaws, probably not meant to withstand a lotta blows. One chance with a soldier and boom! That thing's outta the ballpark." There was an excited glow in his goggles. "But lookie here," Engie added in a rushed whisper. He pulled the tarp with a flourish and through it over his head. Huntress braced herself, and hesitated before looking at what was underneath the tarp. It was a horrible looking thing. not unlike one of her standard conibear traps, only combined with a hundred other strange looking things. Spikes and hooks and prongs and missile launchers seemed to jut out higglety-pigglety. Lights flashed up and down and the machine beeped at her brightly.

"It's... I…"

"Great, I'n it? Built her m'self. Plus I added some of Spy's cloakin machines to render her inviseeble to the naked eye, see." The way Engie smiled, He looked as though he had just opened a hundred Christmas presents and gotten everything he had ever wanted. "Don' have to worry about any heavies coming through and bustin yer chops. This way you can set em up near the front lines and nobody'll notice, yup. So, Ready to try her out?"

Dahlia studied the thing. IT flashed and flickered almost menacingly, and with the stocky old mechanics expert chuckling to himself beside it, it all looked very sinister. Not the kind of thing she would have built to catch specimen for Medic.

"Um… Engie, it's really nice, but…"

"'But' what? Whus wrong with it?" He turned to it and looked. "I worked all the kinks out, she should be runnin' smooth as French silk pie. If you see some'n wrong, though…"

She waved her hands frantically. "N-No, it's fine! I– it's just that… um…" Back to twiddling the thumbs and looking shyly at the tiled flooring. "Well… it's not me, Engie. It's not me. It's really nice, though! Just… not me." Dahlia searched frantically for a logical reason, when just then she caught a whiff of the garage air surrounding them. She put her hands on her hips.

"Besides," she said triumphantly, "I have very sensitive lungs and I can't work around something that smells so strongly of smoke." Huntress nodded her head and turned to show herself out the door, glad to have found something to justify her irrational instability when it came to change. if it worked perfectly fine, why throw out the old system? And what she had said wasn't a lie. Any longer in there and her poor respiratory system might have crumbled to pieces.

Engie didn't say a word. Then, suddenly:

"That don't smell like smoke from these machines."

She turned around. "What?"

"Look," he said, pointing towards a thick. ashy tail of carbon monoxide dripping in from under the door. "it's comin' from outside."

They rushed to the door, yanked it open, and followed the trail in disbelief. Sure enough, other team members had left their rooms and were starting to do it too. it wound itself through the hallways until at last they saw where the thing originated from. Dahlia's jaw hung wide open.

The room down the hall and to the left.


	7. Confessions of a Traps Girl

_AN: LOL wow I posted the wrong chapter. I did get kind of lucky, since you could really do without this one plot-wise, but this is a stream-of-consciousness story, people. PLOT IS IRRELEVANT! _(┛◉Д◉)┛彡┻━┻

_Anyway, without further ado, I present the REAL chapter seven._

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><p>As she ran down the passageways that lead towards the exit, tears formed in her stinging eyes and she could barely breathe. Engie chugged along behind her, obviously in worse shape yet still able to keep up. The smoke was getting thicker as they pushed along, past doors and walls just edges away from being washed in flame.<br>"Doggone it," Engie said between breaths, "This is… it's Pyro again. Has a real hard time 'a controllin' himself. You didn't' – you didn't—" he began to sputter in a coughing fit, stopping for a moment to double over. Dahlia waited for him to finish as Engie let out a tired sigh. "hoo wee, we gotta get outta here fast, er this smoke's gonna get to me."

"You were saying…" Dahlia prodded with worry, trying to figure out if they were any closer to the exit and, more importantly, her bedroom door.

"What? – [huff] - Oh yeah! – [huff puff] – I was saying that you – [wheeze] – Ought not to have anything – [ack hack coff] – anything really, really pointlessly flammable. Y'hear me missy?"

Her mind went instantly to the letters. The countless papers practically lined across the floor. The words Medic had written her in ink and lovingly sent day, after day, after day. She could envision the pure white stationary curling in on itself as its edges glowed a fine neon red, the center turning blacker, blacker, blacker – until at last the letters she had cherished would be nothing but ash enveloped in ceaseless flame.

Dahlia stopped.

"We have to go back."

Immediately she turned on her heel and went marching towards the dormitory hallways, towards the source of the fire, where Pyro had obviously been all too tempted to set everything she owned into flames.

"No! You crazy? Ya play with fire, ya get burned, kiddo! G-get back here!" He could only waddle helplessly after her in an effort to catch up. "there's nothin you can do!" But she, ignited by new reason, was running faster than ever. It was a vain hope, but she had to save those letters, no matter the consequence. When she reached the door, left wide open, what she saw horrified her. The room she had been sitting in not ten minutes ago was ravished in the flames, bits of burning paper scattered everywhere, floating up before disappearing into vapor. The old wooden desk charred and crumbling as the legs burned down and it lost its balance.

"No…"

As flames circled around her, Dahlia fell to the hot ground on her knees, leafing through the once letters as they crumbled through her fingers. All the loving words he had sent to her… She wanted to save them all so badly, but it were as though the letters were peeling themselves off of the page and disappearing into the sky. I'm so sorry, Fritz…

"Huntress, you get yerself outta there this instant!" Engineer came bursting into the room, out of breath – but now Dahlia seemed to be enclosed in a ring of fire, flames blocking the way towards the door and nibbling the doorframe. "You can't save them papers, gosh darn it, yer just gotta get hurt!" This she knew, yet she didn't want to know. Her vision wasn't the only thing the fire made hazy, but her judgment as well. Engie panicked; Huntress was trapped, and it seemed as though nothing could save her. This is the end? she thought to herself, with a melancholy that was almost calm, sitting in her circle of flames. I'll never know why, then…

He wiped the sweat from his brow and said with gestures electrified by adrenaline, "I'll go get Pyro. He's… he's got a suit. You wait here and see what you can do, ok? Can ya handle that?" She nodded, and he dashed off immediately, despite still being out of air. Her heart beat slowly, as a wave of dolor came over her. "I guess this is the end," she said aloud to no one in particular. An awful smell told her that her hair was starting to singe in the heat.

"Dear Medic," she traced in the ashes with her finger, "I'm going to die now. Thanks for being my friend. I never would have survived without you.

"Dear Frtiz, I don't know if you liked me, but you were really my only friend and I always felt protected when you were around. Thank you.

"Dear Friend, if I died, would you miss me? I guess you do already but… you can find someone else to make traps, I suppose.

"Please, Medic. I don't want to die.

"Please, please come find me.

Smoke filled her nostrils and she could barely draw breath to sustain her sobs.

"Please, Medic." Her fingers trembled. "I love you."


	8. Spring Awakening

The sunlight streamed in through the window of the Demoman's room, where they had let Dahlia stay the night after half of the base went down in flames. The rays of light fell across the floor and onto her face. She pulled the thin covers over her head with a groan and turned away, shutting her eyes tightly and trying to fall back asleep.

For once it wasn't raining. And the RED team had made her stay in bed for the day. Dahlia groaned again. She would have loved to go on the mission today, just for once. Trap-building wouldn't have been so lonely. Maybe she'd even try out Engie's new design. After all, he did seem to know what he was doing. Maybe there were a hundred and one flaws with the original traps, and with a man like Engineer to fix them, she'd be able to catch a hundred and one more scouts. Maybe a Spy or a sniper, even. She wondered why the RED Engie back at home never thought of these things, or realized there might have been something wrong with Huntress's designs. Perhaps it was because he never talked to her. Or because he actually trusted her.

A fly continuously threw itself at the window. _Plunk. plunk. plunk._

_Plunk plunk._

_ plunk._

Abruptly Huntress sat up, threw the sheets off of herself, and went to slam open the window so it could get outside.

"There, ya creepy little pest. Now leave me alone."

She shut it again, and turned away, but not without catching a glimpse of herself in the reflection of the glass. A shy girl with short black hair stared back with one bright green eye.

"Ye look good, lassie," Demoman had complimented. "Bold." Though she knew he'd been drinking, as he always was, Dahlia appreciated the old man's sincerity and knew through the drunken slurred words was heart-felt kindness. After all, he had let her stay in his room for the day before anyone else had offered. The clean state he kept it in surprised her – approaching the door down the hallway led by Engie, who acted almost fatherly towards her, she had expected a dimly lit and cluttered dorm lined with empty beer bottles and the suffocating smell of drinks in the small hours. She shivered then, wrapped in the thin white blanket new Medic had provided her, post-assessment, her skin and nails tinged gray from smoke.

_What does it matter what it looks like,_ she thought bitterly, _if you've only an eye to see it._ Huntress found she had returned to the window now, an ashen hand exploring her sagging bandages that masked half her face with a sort of reluctance. Medic had made sure they were properly adjusted, surely, but even the tightest bandages would come loose exposed to the relentless tossing and turning she had done throughout the night.

It was strange. Her face flushed now as it was, she had never before seen her own skin bearing so much color. Dahlia smiled a bit. There was nothing left to do but smile. After all, as the old Medic well knew, she was an incredibly strong girl. Medic knew a lot of things, she realized, especially about her. Whenever she had a question, Medic was always the one with an answer.

Right now, she needed answers.

_Dear Medic_, she wrote,

_I'm sorry I have been neglecting your letters. Spy had instructed me to do so prior to my departure, and I had been trusting him. But a realize now that I was wrong to do so, so I hope you will forgive me. nothing you have done has contributed to my negligence – this was out of my own will entirely, so I hope you will find it in your heart to forgive me._

_if it eases any pain, I am doing well here at the Sawmill RED base. A minor incident incurred last night – a portion of the base caught fire – but rest assured that the team handled things accordingly. The medic here was very efficient in treating my wounds, so you should have no concerns._

_In all honesty, I actually feel quite alive since the happening. a strange feeling has ignited itself inside of me and I am invigorated - why I decided to write this letter. RED team may have had its reasons, but I care more about your feelings than my safety. Please respond soon._

She paused there, pondering for a moment and nibbling on the tip of her fingers. Then the muse came to her, and she wrote:

_Forever yours,_

_Dahlia_


	9. In Which Life Folds In On Itself

"Mission begins in thirty seconds," cackled the voice of the Administrator. The team was lined up at the old, worn base doors, stamping their feet and ready to bullet out of there like a pack of dogs the moment the mission began. Huntress stood with them too, arms full of metal traps (all Engie designed, of course), nearly trembling with excitement. A hushed sort of silence fell over them, no one wanting to utter a word and break the spell, yet on each of their lips waiting a held back battle cry. The final seconds ticked by slowly.

"Get going!" In a flash, the exit doors threw themselves open and the team spilled forth in a frenzy. Scout, the dome of his hat freshly doused with rain, was already halfway to the enemy side of the battlefield; Engie trotting off towards the stairs of the Intel with a toolbox on his sturdy shoulder, Heavy and Medic, guns a blazing, dashed towards where soon would be the wet heat of the battle.

Huntress watched them go, her hands idly installing a few new traps into the soaked soil at the stairway entrance as she did so. She could smell the earth in conjunction with metal, hear the roaring guns half a mile away. Gazing up at the gray sky, she remarked silently how very alive she felt. She had written Medic and sent the letter - her fate with it - in a whir of enthusiasm she wasn't aware she could muster. For the most part, the team was startled. A few remarks went around on how quickly she had recovered considering the recent series of events. The new Medic had said the recovery of her injured face would be slow - she may not be able to use that eye for weeks, even months. Yet this morning she had sprung up like a daisy, practically leaping through the doors from hall to hall. It was a side of her no one had ever seen before, and frankly, the RED Team was scared.

"Girl is like firecracker," Heavy had said fatly, around the table, earlier that day. She saw the rest of them nod from her periphery, and could only smile to herself. For what was there left to do but smile? Scout avoided her now more than ever, always the shy, gawky boy he was, stammering and looking away during any chance encounter in the base. Even Engie was on his nerves. Just yesterday, this had been the girl too shy to tell him she preferred to be the one to do her own job. This morning she had leapt into his arms and hugged him. "Ain't seen nothin like it," he just said, a bit dumbstruck.

Demoman and Soldier, on the other hand, embraced Dahlia's new energy with a sort of keenness that belied how uncomfortable the whole thing really was. The old RED Spy had informed them he'd be sending a "rather quiet girl," yet there she was just hours ago, standing at 5'4 next to Soldier atop the wooden recreational table, shouting out orders and mimicking his domineering, in typical sergeant fashion. Something had been burned off of her, she realized. She could find satisfaction in the mere act of listening to her own heartbeat. She'd be perfectly happy if the rest of her life were spent just laying flat on her back and wiggling her toes. She'd write to Medic every day, she told herself. Even if nothing happened, she'd write him every day about everything, about nothing. Just the thought of putting words on paper and knowing someone out there loved you and cared enough to read them, cared and knew that you were - well, alive - was enough to get her going through the whole day.

That night, after a well-deserved victory, the team spent their evening relaxing in the RED base. Pyro had been prohibited from having anything to do with fire whenever inside the base, and was on heavy probation to monitor behavior. Sniper had retired early, claiming he felt he had something of a cold. Outside, Engie plucked out solitary notes on a mellow guitar. Spy sat with him, but after his first cigarette burned out he called it a night too. Soldier, Demoman, and Heavy sang a drunken chorus of some old, foreign tune. Scout was on a nighttime walk for lack of "fresh air" (though the base still reeked of smoke, so Dahlia couldn't blame him). The new Medic, she assumed, was probably wherever the base medical lab was. Not that she knew. Dahlia still didn't want to know, still tried desperately to avoid him, for fear of heartache.

A few silent moments passed. From where she sat, she heard some faint, distinct noises coming from down a dark corridor she had never bothered exploring, on the pretext of assuming that was where the new Medic spent the majority of his time - she had often seen him heading off in that direction. The noises sounded like metal clanging, the clinking of glass, some inaudible shouting - his voice, definitely. He probably was having to vent some frustration with a recent experiment, or something of the like. Perhaps Scout had pulled a prank and reorganized his entire room. Perhaps a number of his supplies was caught in the fire.

Whatever it was, it did not concern her.

Off of her chair, Dahlia hoisted herself up and waddled for the back base door. She hauled it open and cried a farewell to Engie and his guitar, who riffed back in response, then wandered over towards where the drunken crowd was singing, hollered her best evening wishes in plain words they probably didn't understand anymore, and carried herself towards Demoman's room. Her eyes wandered towards what remained of her own, now just a few, lingering skeleton pieces of charred wood, lop-sided like an unfinished second grade popsicle stick diorama. The sight made her smile - what could she do but smile - as she unlocked the door to the bomb expert's dormitory. Without looking or even bothering with the lights, she flung her fully-clothed self onto the mattress.

And heard a loud crunch.

"Aw, what now?" Huntress tiredly sat up in bed, swiveling to kick her feet off to the side, and groped for whatever it was on the bed she had sat on. A crumpled piece of paper. She fumbled for the switch of the night lamp to her bedside and, when the darkness disappeared, read the fine, curvy handwriting:

_Liebe Dahlia,_

_Do not be afraid. I am coming soon._


	10. I Am a Man of Great Sorrow

The room was hot. Her breath came in gasps she could feel moving in and out past the ring of her pale lips, as her heart fluttered nervously. The mail was normally picked up in the mail room - she had no idea how the note had gotten there. Had he dropped it off, and was he here already? But then, where would he be? And how would he have known she was staying in Demoman's room? She realized it didn't matter now. That he was coming to the base soon, and that was enough to send something scalding through her veins. She wanted to lay down and find swift and sweet sleep, dreaming of Medic. She wanted time to pass faster so that whenever he was going to appear, it was going to be very, very soon.

But her racing heartbeat wouldn't let her sleep. Dahlia couldn't close her eyes, lest they snap open in response to some imagined sound of Medic bursting into the room to sweep her up and carry her away in his arms, bridal style. It dawned on her now how very sick she was with love - and it haunted her.

She turned off the lamp for a moment and sat motionless in the darkness, listening only to the sound of her hastened breathing, trying to calm herself and clear her mind of its barrage of thoughts. In an hour or so, the distant cacophony of drunken song would die down; in so many more, the calls of the morning crows would arise, and so would she, and so would the rest of the team, to get ready for another tedious, rainy day out on the battlefield against a troop of blue maniacs that mirrored their own insanity, in a pointless war with no foreseeable future. She had seen the same scenes replayed so many times, she could remember with a motherly fondness quite exactly what it would look like. In her mind's eye stands Soldier, dressed in his pompous uniform, complete with the golden, fringing epaulettes, hard hat casting a sharp shadow over his eyes as his chin lifts skyward, ready to march boldly forward. Scout scrapes his feet on the ground beside him, tapping the balls of his feet as though fitting on a new pair of running shoes just sent from Ma, back in Boston.

Spy doesn't face forward like the rest of them, but looks off onto the distant lakes with a poet's eye, idly handling a cream-colored cigarette between his lips. Engie, the shortest of the group, has his hands on his hips, having already laid carefully his old, rusty red box of tools on the ground beside him. He wears a broad smile and adjusts his overalls, every so often uttering a well-natured comment on how prepared they are that day, or how he 'lows that Builders League United don't stand one mother-flubbin' ghost of a chance. Pyro is in his own world, like Spy, but with a much eerier nature. One hand on xir trusty degreaser, xe hums softly to xirself. Demoman's one eye glazes over with morning exhaustion, and every so often, he nearly stumbles over the pebbles on the ground in his own intoxicated time step - which jerks him awake for a moment or so. The new Medic positioned dutifully behind him, Heavy grins stupidly, his tomislav growling like a monster truck engine as his beady eyes surrounded by rolls of fat search for unsuspecting foes. Sniper looks over the scene like a cat on high perch, a fiery gleam in his eyes behind the shades. He straightens his hat and adjusts his bandana with an idle care. And there, leading them all, is she, who once stood at the back of the lines, her expression solemn, protectively cradling in her arms her supplies to set traps on the battlefield for that day. Yes, everything was normal.

Huntress's chest rose up and down slowly, her hands on her abdomen and her head back on the pillows of Demoman's bunk. The light still burned brightly, but she was exhausted and chose to pay no heed. Breaths away from sleep, her thoughts drifted listlessly, focused on thoughts of Engie, and they way he would ramble in his southern drawl as they constructed machines together in the shadows of the Sawmill cabins. Just the two of them, to keep her thoughts away from Medic. The two of them, working as week-long friends in the peaceful, steady rain.

The door to the bedroom opened with a loud creak. Dahlia shot up as though electricity had shot through her. There, in the doorway, someone stood on the edge of the lamplight, fidgeting - as her eyes adjusted, she could make out a younger man with short but unkempt hair, biting his lip and peering through the room anxiously.

"H-hey... D... Dahlia... you in there?" His voice broke with each stutter. "Please... please be there... I- I can't see you."

"I'm here," she said, rising from the bed and walking towards him. "What's up?" Scout didn't respond, but she heard him whimpering softly and imagined that the hiccups in his speech were from the tears streaming down his face. "Scout?" Dahlia placed a hand on his arm to comfort him, and was immediately pulled into a desperate hold as he buried his face in her shoulder and cried. She wrapped his arms around him and felt every tremble, every shudder as his body jerked violently with his sobs.

"Scout, what's wrong?" She tried to speak slowly, so as to not overwhelm him. They sat in a minute of awkward silence, he, enthralled in his own tragedy, and she holding him as best she could, struggling to assemble every fiber of assuring maternity in her essence, but completely unsure of what to do. Dahlia wondered what someone braver, like Medic, would do. He'd have all the right words to say. He'd set her down and stroke her hair and hush her till the crying stopped. But it wasn't something she could picture doing herself - least of all to Scout, anyway. At last, he took a large breath in and spoke.

"Help me."

"What?"

"P-please, help me." Practically shouting.

Huntress lowered her voice. "Honey, I don't understand. Tell me what happened."

He swallowed and tried to compose himself, still letting out snivels at intervals as he recollected his experience. "I... I w-went out for a walk, okay?" Scout buried his face in his hands. "And... I got back and... I-I got back and I didn't... I didn't see nobody, ok. Thought maybe they went to bed, or, went to bed or somethin, but... There was s-somethin in the corner of my... my eye, yknow... and... I... by the e-entrance to the... to the b-base...yknow... I..."

She had lost him again. He lurched violently as he burrowed his face into her shoulder, hands shaking too hard to hold her at the sides. She realized there wasn't much more she was going to get out of him, and let go of him gradually, leaving him to collapse onto the bed and heave.

"I'm going out there to see what happened, ok?"

No response.

"Scout. Everything's going to be alright. Nothing's going to hurt you. I promise."

His sounds grew more hysterical, but she ignored him and stepped out into the hallway, whispering about how everything was going to be alright, though whether this was for him or for herself, she was no longer sure. What ever could have brought an arrogant guy like Scout to this sort of despair must have been something formidable. It's ok, she assured herself, rubbing her arms and pacing down the long, dark corridor. All the bedroom doors were shut, and the base was in a state of eerie silence.

Reaching the common room after an expanse of hallway, she leaned over to turn on a nearby lamp. A foul stench filled the air, strong and suffocating. Her eyes adjusted to the bright light. The usual metal chairs were scattered in their half-hearted arrangement, with toppled over end tables across the stainless steel tile, from when Soldier had demonstrated his latest battle plans.

"Hello?" she said, moving soundlessly as she could. In the next room over, Heavy, Soldier, and Demoman had been drinking, as they did every night until the small hours. Surely they couldn't have already stopped. She walked over to the door and peered inside the room. The smell was fainter here, the room an empty scene - bottles of beer standing upright on the long tables as though the shadows of her teammates had all just been there. Even the ceiling light was left on, and continued to flicker. She exited the room and began to follow the trail of that vile scent that seemed to emanate from the walls. It was a familiar smell - of a hard day's work, of throwing the shambles of used traps together to haul home. It was a tired smell, an earthly smell - a smell uncannily human.

She stopped at the entrance of the Respawn room, to which she had wandered up the stairs and was now facing. The rain outside fell softly, a night quieter than usual. No storm, thunder and lightning, just incessant, ominous rain.

The doors to the room slid open at her approach to reveal a shocking sight. The stench was unbearable here, almost tangible. In the back of the room, the supply locker had been torn apart, with several dents in the exterior, one of the doors missing, and its contents - gauzes, bullets, bandages, thread - half-burnt and littered across the floor. Everything in the room had been dismantled, the machines in the walls sparking and fizzing as though about to short-circuit. It looked as though a monster had torn through the room, but to these disruptions she paid little attention. Her eyes were on the floor.

RED Engie lay on the floor on his stomach, the blood draining from his face and beginning to settle towards his belly, his face turned to the side, drooling onto the cold floor. He was surrounded in a pool of his own fluids, with several messy stab wounds in his back where blood puddled up and trickled down his sides. He was covered in scratches and bruises, obviously having gone through a struggle, and wounds on the sides of his shoulders suggested that something had been forced into his body. She recalled this particular scent with more certainty now - it was not only human, it was also unmistakably dead.

She held herself and cried. Everything is going to be alright.


	11. Find an Exit

**AN:** _Thank you guys for all your positive reviews (also those that point out that carbon monoxide is invisible and odorless, and that I uploaded the same chapter twice in a row xD)! This is a bit of an experimental story for me, because I'm trying to include very little humor and explore some darker themes, which are firsts for me. Seeing how you guys seem to like the story so much is really encouraging, so I hope you'll all continue to be interested! Danke~!_

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><p>Rain continued to fall in sheets, pounding against the metal roofs, the steady beat of a lone drum. It made a melancholy twang sort of sound, hollow and choked, like a guitar made out of tin. Hollow and choked. The perfect song to mirror her mood.<p>

Dahlia knelt beside Engineer's dead body. The sight didn't revolt her, she was far too experienced handling cadavers for that, so she was able to flip it over and remove the goggles so his glazed over horse-eyes could stare vacantly at the ceiling. She closed them and folded his arms over his chest – that seemed like the fashion with which one was to handle these things, supposing one was brave enough – speaking softly to him the whole while out of habit for loneliness.

"See, your arms are all folded. We're going to have a nice, a nice funeral for you and – and everything." She tried to smile, but her face was wet and streaming with tears that dripped onto the floor and mixed in with the thin pool of half-dried blood they sat in; it was only now that she realized her white clothes were dyed a rusty brown in grotesque splotches.

She was never sure why she spoke to corpses, knowing they couldn't answer, but it gave her a sort of reassurance, that while their hearts were not beating, they and she were made out of the same flesh and had a likeness, and she as the trap-setter had a sort of special connection with them; it was she who got to see them most, until they were resurrected. But the resupply room was destroyed, and it dawned on her with an insidious hatefulness that Engineer's lifeless body on the cold floor would be Engineer's lifeless body on the cold floor forever.

She didn't know how Engie had died, or why, but one thing was clear: the RED team respawn was no longer working. As long as they remained inside this base, this sordid life would be their last.

Dahlia thought of Scout, and how would have another panic attack when she returned to him in her clothes now the color of a man's life fluids – though she had reached the certain point of instinct, of insomnia, that felt like a permanent ubercharge. The little things no longer mattered. Her heart had callused over, and nothing could stand in her way.

So it was with this blissful negligence that she was able to kiss her dead teammate goodbye and walk sorely out of the room, heading through halls making too much noise to be bothered with, and not pausing twice to look for sign of being followed. With half a mind she wondered of Medic, having pushed the thoughts from herself up until then with the reasoning he'd come to her tomorrow, though this was a temperate and flimsy excuse. He must have delivered it personally, as it was exactly where she slept, and normally she had to retrieve from the mail room her letters. Perhaps out of a thrilled sympathy Engie had brought it there to her, but such was unlikely, even on verge of impossible.

Pushing open the bedroom door, she walked inside to find Scout, sitting on the edge of the bed expectantly. He flinched and his eyes snapped to her with fervor, looking as though the Boogeyman had just walked in. It took a moment to register his friend as he stared like a deer caught in headlights, studying the red spots on her clothes.

At least he's stopped crying, she said to herself. Scout's face was puffy and red, like hers, but he no longer hiccupped and sniffled and his wide eyes were much less glassy.

"D-don't scare me like that, yo," he stammered, though also letting out a sigh of relief. He stood up and approached her. "Your legs…"

"It must have been Engie you saw dead," she said. Her voice was tired and throaty, her nose clogged and her good eye bloodshot. "I found him in the resupply room and…" - Dahlia motioned to her pants – "… I guess I got a little messy. But Scout, we have to leave. The Respawn is gone. We can die now." She noticed how frightened he looked at this as the information registered. "I don't know who the killer is, or what they want, but…" Scout's eyes were wide and white as he shook with fear. The air was thick and humid and smelled of sickness, and rain continued to pour continuously. Her eyes still watered at intervals, as memories of recent events continued to rear their heads before she could suppress them. Her gaze was cast to the ground.

"They could still be here."


	12. Red Rover

Her arm protective around Scout's shoulders, they walked silently through the seemingly endless hallways. From outside, the shining moon found its way through the storm clouds and cast shadows onto the walls, long and spun from a midnight gossamer. The rooms with hardwood floors creaked beneath their shoes, wailing as though in pain. "Come on," she whispered, patting Scout assuredly, though her eyes, white and dilated with fear, seemed to suggest otherwise.

A few miles out from the wet sawmill base the RED team called home was a wayward shack serving as a station where the occasional freight train was said to come through. They would stow away on one called the _Express__7331_ which made its next three stops in the land north, the first, in a place by an enormous gorge, the next in a town known as Double Cross, and the final towards Dahlia's home base in Coldfront. All this she had heard from Engie, in his long, winding conversations with her back in their days of building machinery together in the intel room.

She stumbled forward, tripping over her feet and letting out a small, frightened scream. Scout had stopped walking, causing her to trip. She righted herself and Scout put a hand over her mouth.

"Shh," he said, eyes flicking back and forth nervously. "I-… I heard somethin'." They paused and leaned in, listening intently like rabbits marked for prey. Nothing moved in the darkness surrounding him – even the rain seemed to fall still and hush as their ears began to ring from the silence.

A warm hand found its way over Dahlia's mouth, and the edge of a freezing steel blade at her throat, pressed and prepared to cut into her skin at the slightest movement. She tried to scream, but the hand covered the sound. _Scout?_ Was Scout behind this after all? But what grudge did he bear powerful enough to drive him to kill Engie? And how he had cried before into her bosom, he was a damn good actor.

But no, she could still see the boy in her periphery, still standing beside her, but now leaning his wait onto a wall, collapsed, retreating. Someone else was behind her.

"_You__bitch_." The voice was somewhat low and raspy, curdled thick with a French accent, hissing into her left ear. A body was pressed against hers firmly, practically growling, holding the knife ready to strike at her neck like a venomous snake.

"Spy," she breathed beneath the man's gloved hand. His suit, against her clothing, smelled strongly of expensive cigarettes. "What do you want?" Though her words were muffled, he seemed to understand perfectly. Scout continued to tremble against the wall, not a few feet away from them.

"Ze respawn eez down, thanks to your doeeng," Spy said, then paused as a sadistic glee overcame him. "I could keell you 'owever I like and you would not be able to do a thing." His hand with the blade flexed in anticipation.

Scout squeaked. "Th-thah hell you talkin' about, man? She didn't – she didn't do nothin'. S-she was on the othah side of thah base when… w-when Engie… Engie got attacked a-and it happened." Dahlia heard his breathing, shaking with fear. He sounded as though Spy's knife were at his throat, and not hers.

"Oh?" Spy spat with disgust. "And was she on ze othzer side of ze base when ze Medic went out cold? Or when ze Sniper wouldn't wake up, because _somezeeng_, God knows what, was eenjected eento him!" Scout sank against the wall until he was sitting in the fetal position, cowering with his hands outstretched before his face. The French man spoke with increasing fervor. "Or when ze Demoman, or ze Soldier, or ze Heavy, were all hung up on ze ceiling fan like Chreesmas lights? Or when ze Pyro, for _whatever_ damned reason, had hees mask torn off, was strangled and bruised and stabbed repeatedly, and zen nailed to the wall like a crucifix?"

There was no sound, only Dahlia's heavy breathing. "_What?_" Scout said in a mouse voice. He must have been crying again, she could hear it in the way he said it, and just barely see him out of her periphery.

"Stupid boy." The knife started to dig into her flesh with every syllable, blood just beginning to dribble, until her choked sounds of protest bade him stop. "Tell me, if zees girl and I are ze only competent remaining survivors, who of us is ze killer, hmm? I am not ze one who could 'ave done zees. I lack ze interest."

"I didn't do it!" Dahlia protested, still muffled by his unrelenting glove.

He scoffed, cupping her mouth harder. "Zen who deed?" Spy chuckled. "Wait, no – don't tell me – eet was _Scout._" With this he burst into more uproarious laughter, as Scout continued to sob. His grip slackened on the blade.

She mustered her strength and seized the moment to elbow him sharply in the chest. Spy grabbed his stomach and sputtered, his breath stinking of cigarette smoke. Dahlia went before Scout and held him out of pity, burying her face into his hair as he continued to cry.

"I don't know what you saw, Spy," she said bitterly, "but I'm not the killer. I have no idea who did this." He muttered something inarticulate in French, probably insults directed at the two of them, if she had to guess. But in spite of herself, she continued: "Scout and I are going to escape tonight. The killer could be here, anywhere, looking for us. If what you said is true, then we're the only ones left in the base alive and awake. If you want to come with us, fine. But we're going to work together, as a team. I don't believe any one here is not innocent. If you can trust this, this instinct of mine, then come with us." She stood, holding Scout against herself and supporting his hanging wait. "If you suspect us, then we're leaving you behind."

Spy studied them for a moment. The pair of them, clinging together desperately for life, looked hopeless, lost. "You're crazy," he said, taking another moment to think. "But I suppose I need to make a getaway as well. I'll go weeth you." Her face lifted, almost into a smile. Scout held his breath. Spy smirked to himself, handling the butterfly knife with expertise and putting it away. "Yes, I'll go weeth you." He lit himself a fresh cigarette. "And I weell work weeth you." A large puff of smoke slid from between his pursed lips.

"But I do not trust you."


	13. Straw in the Wind

It was sometime in the small hours of the morning and her face hurt like hell.

They had been waiting patiently at the station side, watching their shadows crawl across the ground as the sun began to rise, before _7331_ pulled in. The engine roar was heard from a distance – Scout heard it first, and perked up, encouraging them all to lean in and listen. The silence was enormous and only slowly penetrated by the distant train whistle, coming to a crescendo. The rain was lightening up now to a drizzle that speckled their faces with drops. They all shivered, Scout by Huntress's side, huddling together, Spy alone against a rusting iron fence, unable to light a cigarette in that weather but still twiddling his fingers as though one were there.

It was the sound of the oncoming train that had woken them up. Scout had been practically asleep on her shoulder. The skin sagged beneath their tired eyes, and they could feel it. Their hair was matted, their skin pale and slightly purpled, a dull throbbing sensation pounding in their heads. Dahlia wondered if Spy looked like this, as well. Behind the woolen mask perhaps he was also suffering the effects of their exhaustion. She could not see him now – she would not look, nor could she see anything. Instead she pictured him in her mind's eye.

His expression of rage, for example, took a defined shape there. Spy at home had always been so quiet. She was never aware of how one could yell, slurring off curse words, she could only guess, in foreign tongue. The way he and all fellow spies had acted the role of such gentlemen belied how hard his fist felt against unprotected flesh. She had only felt it fair to leave a note telling Medic where they were going – even if his message to her had all been, maybe, some elaborate scheme laid out by her teammates to get her hopes up. On the off chance he was coming soon only to find her gone – or, though the thought made her blood turn to ice, if he was the one causing all the deaths, by whatever chance – some whim told her to leave a trail of breadcrumbs behind. She had explained this to Spy and Scout in the calmest manner possible, though she found herself hard put to find explanation for those love-infested urges.

One eye was covered in wet bandages from the Pyro incident – the skin there was still burnt, darkened and laden with pus. The other was surrounded by a black halo that glistened in the rain like smashed grapes. Her vision was squinty and blurred in the rising sun. She could not be sure if she had cried – it was quite possible that now both tear ducts were damaged beyond repair.

As the train pulled in, coming to a deafening, screeching stop, to exchange its load for a new supply of sawmill goods, Spy noiselessly slinked over to one of the rear cars, motioning for Huntress and Scout to follow. She couldn't tell, of course – it was Scout's nudging her gently with his elbow that prodded her to stumble after them. Spy slid open the metal door of the train car, revealing the dark, crowded interior, filled to the brim with bales of hay. The men helped Huntress up and into the train first, an act that startled her. Spy lifted her by the waist as Scout offered support under her arms. She couldn't help but shudder, clambering into the cartload of hay. Spy's gloved hands were now a thing of intimidation.

Hours later, they continued to sit in silence, soaked clothes clinging to their skin from where the rain had touched them, surrounded by dry heaps of grass and the smell of the country. Dahlia was somewhere on the verge of sleep, suspended in a half-consciousness of intermittent thoughts, with only the distant awareness of the men around her. Scout, in the urge to tilt at windmills, had downed a few cans of _Bonk!_, and he jittered about nervously every now and then, huddled next to her.

"Gotta drink dis stuff, or, or I'll fall asleep or some'n. And, yknow, He comes after ya when you're sleepin, and, and when you're not thinkin bout it." He had taken to referring to the killer with a sort of stupefaction, as though they were someone only he truly knew of, and to convey the newly claimed habits of such a fearsome figure was a service to his companions. The killer strikes fastest when you're asleep, the killer only actually kills on Fridays, the killer is bald and wants to skin them all alive for their hair. The more Scout said, the less it seemed they actually knew. But as long as it appeared to calm him down, Huntress was happy.

Spy sat in the opposite corner, perfectly still, watching them warily. His back was against the wall of the train car, his revolver loaded and ready at his side should his fellow travelers act up. His skin, from where it could be seen, was pale and sallow, and he hadn't spoken for hours.

Her chest moved up and down slowly. From outside, birds could be heard in cacophony. She turned on her side, brushing her skin against the brambly hay. _It__'__s__getting__closer__to__tomorrow,_ some hazy thought told her. _We__'__ll__be__arriving__in__Gorge__soon._


	14. The New Medic

** AN: Sorry this took a while, I was writing a blog post and stuff and it kept me busy. Also it's Halloween weekend-ish. Guess who's dressed up like Scout right now? It's me! :D Anyway this one is longish because it took such a long time.**  
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She woke as the train was starting to come to a slow, chugging engine roaring to the whistle that signaled its approach. All around her things were still dark, as the car was closed and windowless, but she guessed it was sometime around eight or nine in the morning. For only having slept for a short while, she felt rested, stretching out her arms and looking around the car as her tired eye adjusted. Scout was curled up at her side, snoring softly. Spy was in the corner, the same place as he was when she drifted off hours ago. He appeared to be napping, but occasionally one eye fluttered open to watch her.

"You can rest up a bit, you know," she said, "You don't have to push yourself so hard." He remained still, pretending not to hear her. Dahlia blinked at him. "Just don't come crying to me when you can't keep your eyes open." Spy gave a quiet moan.

Sitting in the awkward, heavy-eyed silence, she wondered what it must look like outside right now. Only a sliver of light found its way through the metal doors of the car – she wasn't sure of whether it was even afternoon or morning. This was the first time she had been on a train, or even seen one, and something about it made her feel isolated and nervous. After a restless night that felt like eternity, she wanted to remember what the outdoors looked like again. She hated herself for almost having forgotten.

Dahlia still missed Medic in a way that almost felt like sickness. They were steadily making their way towards Coldfront, again, and that was a relief, but how could she be sure Medic was even there, after the cryptic message he had left her? The doubt lurked in the back of her mind that when they finally arrived, all would be there but him, stony-faced, questioning but silent, unwelcoming. She had taken for granted the friendliness of this new base towards her. And now with her damaged eyes, perhaps they would think she was completely worthless. Horrid, vivid thoughts flashed by, of how they would neglect her, abandon her.

She held onto the hope that Medic was there. It was not a question of whether she would see him again, she realized, but one of how. And she knew, that when she found him, she would wrap her arms around his strong body and never let go.

The rolling motion of the train came to a stop with a loud screech. Dahlia shook Scout to gently wake him, and he looked up at her groggy-eyed. "We've arrived at Gorge," she said. "Want to get off and stretch your legs?" Scout waved her away and rolled onto his side, falling asleep again. She wondered how much time they'd have before the train took off again.

Dahlia turned to Spy. "If you're so opposed to sleeping, I'm sure you could get up now and go outside for a bit." She watched his chest move up and down as his breathing came in rasps. He moaned. Concerned, she clambered over towards him and felt his head with the back of her hand. Even through the mask, it was burning.

"Oh God."

Her fingers worked themselves to the bottom of the wool mask and they pried it off of his face. The thing was soaked with sweat, she felt, and it was beading up on his face. It was a handsome face, slim, and sharp in all the right places. His hair was a delicate chocolate brown that surprised her with its gentleness, falling in wispy curls over his forehead. Even clenched in pain, Spy had a gentlemanly sort of face. She held it in her lap and caressed him.

Huntress hissed to Scout. "Hey! Get up." With an annoyed grunt, he flopped onto his stomach and opened an eye to glance at her, wondering why he was so rudely woken up again.

"Scout, I need you to open the door. Spy's sick with something, and we gotta get him help, fast." Realizing the gravity of the situation, Scout hoisted himself up with a new energy and tripped to the door, yanking it open as Dahlia slung Spy's sick body over her back, grabbing hold of his legs, which he wrapped around her weakly. Slightly bent, she made her way to the door and hopped out, straining her legs in the process.

The sunshine she had missed for so long blinded her single eye, and it took her a moment of vertigo to begin moving. Spy continued to breathe heavily, and his warmth spread onto her where their skin made contact. When the white mask over her vision started to fade, she could see a path that stretched through towering pines, reaching a gate in a high chain-linked fence. Beyond it rose a concrete jungle of stairways, gates, and bases. BLU's was sparse and had many smaller buildings encircling to a split-level bunker. RED's was tall and formidable, across from it, and all in one piece. So this was Gorge.

They were unlucky. The day's battle had already started, and below amongst the towers could be heard a number of cries and explosions. A Heavy's machine gun grumbled beneath it all, accompanied by the high pitched crack of a Scout's pistol. She thought she could pick out a Medic or too, which disturbed her. Scout was already down the path, clearing the way, and waiting for her to follow with Spy.

They would have to make their way to the RED base without being seen. They weren't a part of this respawn, and were still vulnerable. As the three entered, something chirped at them from the right – a BLU mini-sentry perked up and began firing. Scout brought out an Atomizer and began to beat the thing down as its bullets penetrated his skin and ripped holes through his shirt.

"Scout, no!" Dahlia stumbled towards him as the machine exploded. He turned to face her, blood running out of his nose and clothes stained, grinned childishly, and gave her a thumbs up. She sighed with a hesitant laugh, reaching into Spy's pocket and tossing him a gadget. "Next time," Huntress said, "we'll just try a sapper, okay?" His face fell.

"Sentry down!" a man called from the distance. A BLU Engineer came huffing towards them, rusted wrench at the ready. Scout glanced at Dahlia assuredly, giving her a signal to get going, and dashed in the direction of their new enemy, firing a pistol.

Scout was weakened, and she didn't trust him to survive. But with both him and Spy near exhaustion, there was nothing she could do. Silently, she ran off towards the large RED building. Spy continued to breathe with difficulty. "It's okay," she said softly. "We'll get there soon. They'll help us." Though lately, she had done a lot of false reassuring. Dahlia wasn't sure just whom she said this for.

They found an entrance and slunk in. The roars of fighting grew distant now, but her footsteps echoed in the empty space. Along with someone else's. She looked about, and suddenly gasped. There, a few feet away, a BLU Pyro ambled about aimlessly. Xe didn't seem to know where the rest of xir team was, but held xir flamethrower out in front of xirself, head darting back and forth at any sign of an enemy. She reached for his wrist, hanging limply around her neck, and triggered the invisible watch, as the man suddenly disappeared in a cloak. At least one of them would be safe, she hoped. His weight still pressed down on her, and she was starting to feel pain in her lower back.

The Pyro's attention snapped towards the sound of the watch. Xe saw them then, and began charging in a flash, flamethrower bursting with fire. Dahlia had to ignore the pain and run. She would find an Engineer soon, she hoped, or a Sniper. They'd have to help her.

"Help!" there was no one in sight at the final point yet as they entered the room. The teams must have been still wrestling over the first one. "Please help!" Spy groaned with every jarred step she took as they fled, and the Pyro let out an anguished cry behind them, followed by thuds, as those of xir thick boots. They were slow. At any moment the arsonist would catch up with them, charring them to a crisp and ending their lives instantly. Her heart beat against her ribs violently, and her struggled gasps for air began to mix in with the sick man's she carried. The pair reached a Sniper spot, and Dahlia threw herself in, only to discover it was a dead end. She started to scream.

"Help! Please, somebody save us!" Spy was nearly out cold. She wanted to cover her eyes as she backed towards the wall, but she'd risk dropping the man. She could only scream as their predator edged closer.

But xe didn't come. They waited half a minute without a sound, and nothing came. Dahlia tip-toed towards the door, her heart beating like a mouse's and suspended in fear.

The Pyro was dead on the floor. A mass of syringes protruded from xir back. She let out a sigh of relief, and nearly cried. But she couldn't waste any time searching for help herself now, she realized. They had wasted too much time, and she needed to leave Spy in someone else's hands so she could get to Scout, or he'd be gone. And Spy might be too, if they weren't successful. Still trembling with nervousness, she inhaled and let out a loud shout:

"Medic!"


	15. Till Sunset

The sharp taste of Blutonium Berry punch sent electricity through his veins as Scout downed the whole can in one swig. He was an expert here, this was his playing field. He was always awkward and shy in anything that didn't seem to involve baseball, so in this, he strove to outshine the rest of the combatants. Well-worn bat in his gauze-wrapped hand, he tossed the soda can behind him and started to dash through the rows of fighting Soldiers, Demoman, and Heavies alike, taunting them all as their bullets failed to slow him down.

"Oh yeah!" he said, running backwards and making a face, "Fat lot a good those guns are doin ya!" The blood had dried all over his shirt and skin, and he was covered in cuts and bruises. But Scout felt alive. Finally, here he had power, control. As the effects of the Atomic Punch began to wear, he ducked out of eyesight and sidled against a RED base wall, breathing quickly and laughing with the adrenaline. He knew Dahlia would be worried sick about him, and this caused something in his mood to sink, for a moment. The BLU team was likely looking for him in rage, but at least he had made a decent distraction. Silently, he looked for a entryway and snuck in.

The BLU team was beginning to enter the base now as well, having capped the first point. There was nothing he could do to stop them now, so he continued to scour the base for his friends. A RED sentry flickered its lights, scanning back and forth for sign of enemies. Beside it slumped an Engineer, asleep and leaning against a dispenser.

Scout nudged him lightly. "Hey," he said. The Engineer didn't stir. "I said HEY!" Scout stomped his foot impatiently – this man shouldn't have been asleep on the job in the first place, and now it was costing him time. The man woke with a alarmed jolt and looked around, scrambling to get his hands on his shotgun, as though expecting to find the enemy front lines mid-ambush. When the scene finally registered to him, he seemed almost disappointed to find only a Scout of his own team. He muttered some choice words to himself.

"Dammit, Jack!" He rubbed his temples with a free hand. "I told you not to wake me when I'm asleep. What the hell were you thinking?" It seemed he was now "Jack", whom he assumed was this team's Scout, and who was not in good terms with this man.

This was an older Engineer, Scout noted as he studied the man, vastly different from theirs back at the Sawmill base – it made him shudder to remember the old Engineer - with hair and whiskers that had long grayed over with an elderly frost. This man was like him, years ago. Perhaps this man once dreamt himself a hero. As he slept, he was a hero in his own mind's eye.

Scout sighed. "Sorry, man. I'm just… really in something tight right now, yknow? I- I was wondering if you n-noticed a girl walking by carrying a S-Spy. I think they were looking… f-for a Medic." His gaze was set on the ground, his hands behind his back and feet shuffling boyishly.

The Engineer sputtered a laugh. "Son, if I'm over here sleepin like a baby, how'm I supposed to see me a Spy, huh?"

"Look, I s-said I was s-sorry, ok? I'll find 'em myself." Scout began to walk away, the Engie's machines twittering in interest. The old man resumed his mutterings and paced around them. The base around them was large and cavernous, and the sounds of the sentry echoed in the large space. In the center of the cratered floor was an enormous control point with the center glowing a bright red. Scout could hear, a few hallways away, the din of the BLU team steadily approaching.

"Wait," the Engineer sighed. "You said they were lookin' for Doc?" Scout nodded. The man looked up as though his thoughts would assemble themselves there. "If yer looking for Medic… I think she said she was headin' upstairs. But that's just a _maybe_, Jack, don't you go putting your hopes on it."

He smiled at the Engineer, wondering what he meant by _she_. "Thanks."

Bounding up the stairs towards the hallways that overlooked the control point, Scout could hear low voices, hushed to a whisper. He reached a metal door, behind which – yes, that sounded like Dahlia, he thought – the sounds came. Slowly, he pushed down the rusted handle and entered the room.

Before him were spread a number of plain white beds with thin sheets, lined up against the gray walls on opposite sides of the room. Across the white tiled floors bustled a woman, fairly young-looking, with blonde hair thrown loosely into a bun that was beginning to fall apart. She was dressed in a standard Medic's outfit, with thickly framed glasses and a stethoscope around her neck and large, brown boots. She swiveled around to face him as he walked in.

"A pleasant postmeridian hour to you, Jack," the woman said in a thick German accent, mistaking him for the team Scout, like Engineer. Her smile was large and almost unsettling, and her blue eyes twinkled.

"Uh, afternoon." Scout looked about the small ersatz hospital. In the bed to his immediate left was a Heavy, large and asleep on his stomach and covered in casts. A Sniper was taking a siesta in the bed on the opposite side, for no discernable reason other than he was lazy. Towards the back of the room, by a window looking out onto the point, was Spy, still strange and foreign-looking now without his mask. He appeared to be breathing, though his eyes were closed and he made little movement. Kneeling at the foot of the bed was Huntress, looking as though in prayer. Scout approached her as quietly as he could, resting a comforting hand on her shoulder uncertainly.

"H-hey—"

Dahlia turned in that moment and pulled him down into a bear hug, digging her face into his chest. "Mmmft," she said into his shirt, earning his look of confusion, "Mmf mmfs mfoh mmrffd mmfbt mmph."

"S-sorry, I c-can't hear you when your f-face is pressed into my—"

"I was so worried about you!" She was now looking up at him with one glistening eye. "I thought both of you were going to die!" Dahlia began to rock him back and forth, Scout letting her push him with an awkward expression. He looked at the blonde woman, who was merely watching them with a small grin.

"What h-happened?" he mouthed.

"Beleaguer not yourself," the doctor said. "It is my conjecture that she acts in this manner only out of enervation."

"Look, I h-have no idea wh-what the—what the hell you just s-said."

From the pocket of her long medical robe she pulled a small dictionary burgeoning with bookmarks. The cover was worn and several hundreds of the pages were dog-eared and tearing with overuse. "Beleaguer," she began, flipping through the book with clear expertise. She seemed to have the pages nearly memorized. "To besiege; to surround with problems, to pester. Originating from the Flemish Wars—"

"N-nevermind, okay?" A look of sudden disappointment flitted across her face, but momentarily. In the next instant she was again beaming, stretching the freckle-smattered skin across her cheeks.

Scout's focus returned to Dahlia, she was still holding him now, as a child their mother, but her head was turned and she faced the window, off in some daydream. He took the moment to study his teammate. Spy's face was still soaked in sweat, which the woman would dab off with a cold cloth every few minutes or so. She seemed about Spy's age, perhaps even younger.

"Beatrix says the train pulls away from Gorge at sunset," Dahlia murmured, her head resting on Scout's shoulder. Beatrix must have been the name of the eccentric medic, he reasoned.

It occurred to him during the moment he had not the slightest idea how to hold a girl, and that he was barely touching Huntress, almost trying to increase the distance between them to at least an arm's length. It wasn't that he didn't like her, no, but that she wasn't like all the rough-housers he had always grown up with. She wasn't like Soldier, or anyone back at the base, with a voice like a megaphone, shouting vulgar words for the sake of hearing them. She was normally so reserved and gentle, so this invasive approach somewhat scared him. She was the outfield. She was different territory.

Dahlia continued to speak, her voice cracking as though she were starting to cry. "I don't think Spy will recover by then. We can't leave him behind, but… Scout, I want to go home." The two of them spent a minute in silence as Beatrix made her rounds. He felt so strange, not knowing what to do. He felt as though he disappointed her, that he had no solution. But he wanted to help. Dahlia was his friend. Scout watched the doctor as she rubbed Spy's face with the towel with care, checking his temperature, humming to herself all the while.

"W-we'll stay till sunset," he said, surprising himself as the words poured from his mouth. "We'll st-stay with Spy, and… a-and when the train, uh, comes, we'll leave h-him here with this team. B-… Beatrix will take g-good care of h-him. I… I p-promise."

Dahlia said nothing, but continued to rest on his shoulder. After a while, she nodded.

"Okay," she said softly.

Through the window and below, the RED and BLU teams struggled for control over the point.


	16. Special Occasion

Spy had woken up, and was propped against a large pillow. His open, sickly stare to the opposite wall was vacant and haunting. Beatrix chatted to him absentmindedly, refilling an untouched glass of water at his bedside table until the liquid reached the brim and began to spill over. Occasionally he would moan in quiet agony, which made Scout bristle with unease.

On the other side of the room, he and the new medic had finally reduced Dahlia to a reckless sleep. Her eyelids fluttered as she thrashed about the thin sheets unconsciously, sometimes mumbling sounds of her dreams that only she could hear. She had seemed very much against it, insisting on spending every moment with her bedridden comrade, but after so little hours of actual rest she was on the edge of lunacy. Scout, too, had been awake for at least a day, and his thoughts rolled together like soup, often spiraling into tangents he could not control, half-dreams, lucid visions. But the nuclear caffeine of that last _Bonk!__Atomic__Punch_ surged through his veins with a drunken electricity.

Besides, he told himself, he had promised Dahlia that if she slept he'd stay awake for her and look after Spy. Why the sudden interest in him, he couldn't begin to guess.

It had been the peak of afternoon when they'd arrived at Gorge; by now, it must have been at least three. That gave them roughly another three hours before the train left for Doublecross. Hopefully Huntress would sleep through them.

The sky was a dusty pink and orange, the color of fleshy grapefruit. Golden silk threaded the edges of the high pines, dotting the distant rolling hills and ringing the Gorge in a frosty crown of forest. An autumn wind blew through the valley, caressing it all in a cool blanket. Scout helped Dahlia up into the same train car of hay, and they climbed in together, shutting the door behind them. The floor was stone cold; Huntress nestled in the hay to keep warm, and they sat in the chilled, humid silence of the evening as the train roared to life and began to tug away.

Spy was in the RED emergency room with the strange Medic, who promised, in her eccentric speak, that she'd take good care of him, just to calm Dahlia's nerves. She said goodbye to the man a few hundred times, and with each he merely looked at her with sick and empty eyes. She had slept and was more compliant at this departure, leaving out the door after Scout mournfully, but without a second look.

Scout listened to the rhythmic rumble of the train sleepily with his head resting against the wall of the car. He heard Huntress shuffling about next to him, trying to get more comfortable. She rolled over towards him and tugged on his sleeve.

"Hey... I'm… sorry about today." He turned to face her; Dahlia's eyes were cast downward.

"W-what's ta be sorry about, huh?"

She sighed, though smiling, and in a tremulous sort of way. "It was just a little awkward, that's all." He could hear her sniffling in the cold.

"I… g-guess."

Huntress laughed and edged closer towards him, extending a hand. "Y'know," she said, "we've been working together for weeks, but I don't suppose we've ever actually met. I'm Dahlia Dolor." She grabbed his and gave it a friendly shake.

"... Elliot. M-my name's Elliot." The girl smiled at this. Hay scratched at his skin where it was exposed, and he began to pick at it.

"Things have been kind of interesting, haven't they?" Her silhouette looked up at the ceiling in the overhanging darkness. "Ever since I showed up. I mean, first the fire, then this… thing." They both sniffled. Her voice shows signs of wear and the beginnings of a cold. Elliot felt for the strap of the messenger bag that was slung around his shoulder, hoisting it so that the bag was on his lap. He unfastened the buckle and pulled out a RED sweatshirt, offering it to her.

"Uh, h-here." Dahlia slipped it on and thanked him, holding herself to keep in the warmth. Even through her shivering, she continued to smile. They sat in a moment of silence, Scout looking to the ground, covered in brambles of hay, and she straight forward in vacant reverie.

"Hey, c-can I be honest wichyou?" he said, beginning to close the bag and tuck it behind him. She nodded, and he noticed her trembles were beginning to subside. He sighed and looked around him, hoping to find the words that were never there.

"I—I ain't got a lot of friends, yknow? Ain't never h-had 'em. Cause I'm a coward. A "s-string-bean." A wimp, a dork, wh-whatever, yknow? Listen, y-you're one of tha f-first people who's ever been n… nice to me, Dahlia." Hearing him say her name for the first time made her laugh. Elliot grinned too, though uncertainly. "C-can I call you that? Da… Dahlia?"

"I think it sounds cute when you say it," she said, giggling and ruffling his hair, which made him look away in embarrassment.

"Please don't do th-that, you re-m-mind me o'my ma."

"You want my opinion?" Dahlia asked, putting her hand down and softening her expression. She looked at him with wide, earnest eyes. "Frankly, everyone you've met must have been a jerk. Maybe you get scared sometimes, but so does just about everybody.

"And hey, remember today? Spy was in trouble, and you fought to save him. That wasn't cowardly at all, or wimpy or anything like that. It was wonderful." She beamed. "So please don't beat yourself up about it. I'm glad to be your friend, Scout. I bet your whole team was, too, right down to Spy. And who knows who else we'll meet once we get back to my old base, huh? You'll make good friends with everybody, I promise. Especially…" Her voice died off.

"Especially what?" Scout had found the courage to look her in the face, his eyes wide in surprise at what she had said.

And now she threw her glance to the floor: "When I used to be at Coldfront, my best friend… he was the Medic, and… he was really sweet." Dahlia sighed dreamily and looked up.

"You used tah write him letters."

She turned to him. "How did you know that?" His face grew hot and red.

"I sort of snuck around your room a buncha times. I've never met a girl before. I wanted to know how they work."

At any other time, she might have given him a clout to the head, but here she realized he said this out of real boyish curiosity. "Oh? How did everything seem in there?" she smirked.

"Weird," he said with genuine fear in his face, eyebrows raised. "There weren't even any baseball cards."

Dahlia laughed and hugged her friend. The train blew its loud whistle, and the sound was swallowed up into the night.


	17. Drugged

**AN: Sorry this took forever! Ack, I've been busy for a month doing a play and lost my voice. Anyway, here's a late Thanksgiving present. Expect the next and FINAL chapter shortly! Eeee, I'm so excited ~ **

The wide, unmarred snow banks of Coldfront shimmered brightly in the blind, dry sunlight. Against the cloudless blue of an early morning's winter sky stood the tall cedars and stone buttresses of the RED base, which cast a long tail of shadow.

She was walking with him.

They strolled in poignant strides, her hand wrapped around his firm elbow, both decked from head to toe in layers of wool clothing, Dahlia not daring gaze up into his handsome face but merely stare forward with no interest in what was happening before them, but rather a heightened sense of periphery. At any motion he made, any dark, guttural clearing of the throat or adjustment of the glasses she froze and listened, leaning in with heart aflutter and every drop of total awe, as one admires a childhood hero.

Nor did he look down to her, but for a different reason. Perhaps he enjoyed these nature walks of theirs, for his mind seemed wrapped around the sight of a bright red cardinal darting in and out of the dull greens of the trees, or the song it sang in its high, organic tone, or the crunch of the snow under their boots as they walked.

Something had been doting on her, a resonant note of doubt that grew with each step of silence between them. She tried to speak, but the question hanging in her mind was caught in her throat. Dahlia forced it through her lips in a soft voice that cracked:

"Are you sure?" But the sound wasn't her own, it was Elliot's voice, asking a question she had never meant to say. She turned to face Medic, but he was gone, Scout standing in his place. Their arms were linked and he was looking at her, brows furrowed, his expression that of one searching for help. "Are you sure?"

The words rang in her head, echoing to a chorus of thumps as the scene dissolved into nothingness in her minds eye. Her eyes fluttered open and Huntress found herself again in the darkness of the stationary train car, tangled in Scout's arms, hay, and sweatshirts, awaking from a dream. He was asleep with his head leant towards her, snoring softly. It must have been early then, she surmised, sometime in the peak of the morning. It occurred to her that they must have already arrived in Doublecross, but she felt no urgency to get up and go stretch her legs. She nestled towards Scout for warmth and let herself fall into the darkness again.

A gentle wind stirred and touched her cheek. It was chilling, colder than it had been as they were moving north. Huntress's eyes opened and she found herself laying on her side with her face pressed to the wooden floor, blanketed in hay. The door to the train car was pulled open and the rugged terrain of Doublecross stretched before her. Snow was lightly beginning to fall, icing the edge of the floorboards nearest the open door.

Scout was gone.

Dahlia shivered and pulled herself up, looking around for any sign of him. He must have run off and not wanted to wake her up, she figured, scooting towards the exit and pushing herself off so that she was standing on the ground. Doublecross was large and grandiose, high up bridges and pathways crisscrossing in a web over where the train had stopped. The RED base was a tall, wooden, multi-storied structure with arching planked roofs, painted a barn shed scarlet; the BLU was a concrete block of factory, lit by fluorescent spotlights that highlighted the large, spray-painted BLU logo against the coal black nighttime sky.

She had been asleep the entire day. Suddenly a dull, throbbing pain banged in her temples and her vision became black and white; she found herself falling over and onto her knees with a tingling sensation in her limbs. Dahlia still wore Scout's sweatshirt and was flecked in split ends of hay and now the dirt from groveling on the ground. Her face was wet with tears she couldn't explain - she was tired and nauseated and her eyes were watering.

But her senses returned and she became increasingly aware of the fact that above them, a battle scene was going on, more raucous and violent than that of Gorge. Above her head on a roofless deck stood a Sniper, muttering to himself about his latest target on the other side of the field. Not far away was a wooden stair case that led up to the highest bridge, where blood was being shed. Beside it gaped the open mouth of a tunnel entering into sewers. Dahlia dusted herself off and dashed inside.

The place was filled with clay and sand and water dripped off the rusting walls to the floor, lit only by a few dingy lights nearly flickering out in exhaustion. She followed a worn trail through the tunnels to a sandy ramp with stout metal railings, opening up onto a tiled floor. To her right was a staircase through which the sounds of the base's upper stories rang; to her left, a large tank of something suspended on small wire legs. Metal pipes garnishing the walls were groaning under a watery weight. Someone moaned weakly.

"Help..." Dahlia recognized it at once, racing around to the other side of the tank. Elliot was there in a dirty wet corner, tied up elaborately in strange metal cords that cut into his skin and traced lines of blood. His eyelids drooped and his jaw hung open as though he had no full awareness of what was going on. She gasped, her breath shuddering, and knelt beside him.

"Scout... what happened?" His head rolled on his neck and she put a hand under his chin, looking into his groggy eyes. "Tell me who did this to you." The tears thickened and became rivers down her face, soaking the half covered in pus-filled bandages.

At his garbled response, she immediately reached into her back pocket, where she kept a spare utility knife. From outside the sewers, the train called in a high pitched whistle. Her fingers fumbled from the sweat as they searched desperately for the knife but found nothing there. She had misplaced it, or it had fallen out, it seems. Perhaps it had never been there at all.

"Scout, I..." His stare was vacant, he hardly knew she was there. Someone's steps thundered down the stairs and the train whistling grew louder, about to depart. Dahlia looked at Scout once again.

She kissed him on the lips and ran.


	18. My Doll

The place was just as she left it: silent in the snow that fell in straight lines like streamers and wrapped around it like a scarf, undulating against the wet edges of the old stone walls. This afternoon, the lid-like sky was dark and gray with swelling clouds bursting full of ice. It was shadowed, as no sunlight broke through, and it was unusually quiet.

A path wound through the snow-covered pines and past a decaying shack towards the familiar RED base; she was taking it now, broken, weary, and downcast. Spy was gone. Elliot was gone. Hell, Dahlia couldn't be sure she had ever arrived home all in one piece. The skin of her face seemed to peel with both burn and frostbite, half covered in rotting gauze. She was covered in dirt, her neck bruised in places from incidents she couldn't remember. Around her was wrapped Scout's red hoodie, warm but no where near sufficient to guard against the freezing cold. Her shoes, also thin and weary, could only tread each step with thoughts of seeing Medic to fuel them.

Blood coursing slowly, the aftereffects of little and scattered bouts of sleep, her images of him flashed through her mind only hap-hazardly, but they were enough. All she wanted was Medic around her to keep her warm, so badly.

She neared the open mouth of the RED base's entrance. After so long, Dahlia was finally home in Coldfront. The old Spy might be mad, she mused, for coming back with no notice, but once she explained everything she knew he'd understand and welcome her with open arms. She'd get to see Engie, and show him the new trap designs in the new Engineer's honor; she'd find Sniper, and let him know how much she'd grown, how much stronger and braver she was; perhaps she'd join in with Demoman and Soldier and Heavy as they sang their tunes and drank mead, yelling and shouting. Finally she'd have stories to tell of her adventures in Sawmill, about the fire she braved.

And finally, she'd tell Medic she loved him.

Huntress stepped onto the first tiles of the RED base, near the exit, holding herself and nearly limping. It was quiet and empty - the team must have been elsewhere - but she was home, and she wanted to fall onto the floor and cry she was so happy. But she couldn't, yet, she had to find Medic first. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and walked the way to the stairs that led down to his basement lab. She knew the way. When she was younger and first in the base she would walk down there and sit on the steps by the landing and listen to him work. Huntress could walk there blindfolded.

She turned the handle of the door and stumbled down the steps, catching herself in time to keep from nearly falling down and gaining more injuries. She had to find him. The stairway was dark, but she knew it well and felt her way to the bottom, towards a source of light. The work lights had been left on, and a single candle burned brightly on the examination table. Dahlia ambled towards it and bent over, resting her forearms on the table as she breathed heavily, the tears forming in her eyes again.

"Vhat a pleasant surprise." Suddenly her face flushed and her blood ran cold, adrenaline working its way through her body. She stood up sharply and turned. He was there in the dim of the work lights, casually casting his medical coat and thick gloves aside on a counter. Strangely he didn't seem surprised at all.

"Medic," she said softly, running towards him. He enfolded her in his arms and lifted her up so their faces were level, smiling kindly as she wrapped herself around his strong neck and began to let everything out, sobbing openly into his shoulder over the past days, her friends sick and weak and dying, over how tired she was, but now how happy she was. Medic said nothing, and merely held her there, swaying a little. Dahlia tried to speak through broken sobs, but he hushed her until she finally calmed down. He gently set her on the floor, guiding her to the empty, clean examination table.

She sat beside the candle and he knelt before her, studying her bandages with a look of concern. "Does it hurt?" he asked, caressing them a little.

"No, not anymore." She smiled at him weakly, and he returned it. He straightened fully and went to his cabinets to search for his creams and a new set of new gauzes to cover her wounded face as she continued:

"Medic, can I... tell you something?" He nodded, as she cast her eyes to the ground. "I really missed you," Dahlia said sheepishly, kicking her feet back and forth like a child. Medic stopped what he was doing and turned, slowly, to face her again, taking a gentle step forward. She looked up at him for a moment, and spoke softly. "Medic, if... if I'm being honest here, I... I'm in love with you."

He was crouching in front of her again, smiling up at her. His hands were on her face, in a few moments in which her blood coursed like ice, playing with her hair, his body almost on top of hers and pushing it down onto the examination table, his face buried and turned to nestle against her neck. "You're so cold," he mumbled as he felt her skin, his lips brushing over the familiar bruises. She could have died, she was so deliriously happy.

* * *

><p>A white linen dress brushed softly against her thighs. Her hair was wet, and against her face, from which the thick, stained bandages were removed, leaning only the newly cleaned wounds. One eye still sported the lessening gray-blue band from where Spy had hit her, the other bloodshot and distressed and all the wrong colors, hardly open and surrounded in rugged, calloused skin.<p>

Medic insisted that she shower after so much travel as she later claimed, when telling him her story, and he was right - everything was shed from her, and the fresh clothes and smell felt wondrous. She had still seen no sign of the rest of her team, and many of the doors were locked. Out on a mission, they likely were.

Her hands held a cup of tisane Medic had brewed for her, telling her the importance of her keeping warm. He had wanted her to sit at the table or in a chair, but to his surprise the moment he sat down himself she leaped on his lap and snuggled up to him, saying it would make her much less cold. The tea was an herbal blend, and he could rattle off easily on everything that was in there, rose hips and chamomile and cinnamon; it was bitter and tasted slightly of almonds, but he had steeped it to perfection.

She had told him everything, about Elliot and Spy and the entire Sawmill team, and he had sympathized with her every loss and turmoil, which would make her sigh and cuddle up to him starry-eyed in her state of juvenile ecstasy, and Medic would have to remind her to finish the tea so she could replenish her strength.

"I love you," she'd whisper again and again, as they sat for hours, her face pressed against his chest and struggling to take it all in. Every so often he'd find the courage to look down at her, into her hideous face. It was burnt and marred and uncovered, and a pang of resentment rang through him for letting one as beautiful and untouched as hers go by so long. It didn't matter though, he decided, smiling to himself. He could cover it up later, as he had much to clean up. Or cut it off.

The body was all he needed anyway.

**AN: I think I just trolled the whole TF2 fanbase in one fell swoop. Props to me, I guess!**


End file.
